The iPhone is helping AT&T while hurting the phone company's competition

Even though the iPhone does not launch for 11 days, the hype
surrounding the latest Apple gadget continues to explode. More than 64
percent of American users and 56 percent of British mobile phone users have at
least heard of the iPhone.

While the iPhone will be an expensive product -- priced at $499
and $599 for the 4GB and 8GB model respectively-- and users will have to sign
an exclusive contract with AT&T, many consumers seem unfazed.
According to a study done by M:Metrics, almost 1 in 10 mobile phone users
in the United States have "a strong interest" in purchasing an
iPhone. Of the 11,064 people polled for the study, 67 percent are
subscribers of a service besides AT&T.

I know what you mean. I was being a bit of a smart ass there. But you know there has to be a middle ground. Pretty much any new technology can be seen as frivolous. Especially when if first comes out. In a few years, all of the features of the iPhone could just be normal expected things.

For some people it's worth a little extra money to not wait for it. I'm not going to be the judge of what other people should spend their money on.

"If you look at the last five years, if you look at what major innovations have occurred in computing technology, every single one of them came from AMD. Not a single innovation came from Intel." -- AMD CEO Hector Ruiz in 2007